The almshouse at Bridge End

Text 1: A call upon Mrs Hale, by Margaret Ellerby

An original diary written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

I called today upon Mrs Hale, who has lived in the almshouse at Bridge End for nine winters. Her son in Leeds has twice offered to take her in, and twice she has refused. In his house, she told me, she slept upon a settle in the kitchen and rose before the family so that the room might be cleared for breakfast. Here she has one small chamber, but the door is hers to shut, and she may keep her fire as high or as low as her coals allow. The rules forbid visitors after eight o’clock, which she considers a small price. ‘At my son’s I was always in the way,’ she said, ‘and here I am in nobody’s way but my own.’

Explain two reasons why Mrs Hale prefers living in the almshouse to living with her son.